Monday, August 12, 2013

In the summer of '45, the United States concluded a war that had come to be seen by some as unwinnable after the carnage at Iwo Jima, with a bang.

On August 6th, the bomb fell on Hiroshima. And then on the 9th, it was Nagasaki's turn. Six days later, Japan, which had been preparing to fight to the last man, surrendered.

For generations of liberals, those two names would come to represent the horror of America's war machine, when they actually represented a pragmatic ruthlessness that saved countless American and Japanese lives.

There can hardly be a starker contrast to our endless unwinnable nation-building exercises in which nothing is ever finished until we give up than the way that Truman cut the Gordian Knot and avoided a long campaign that would have depopulated Japan and destroyed the lives of a generation of American soldiers.

The spectacle of Nidal Hasan trying to communicate to a politically correct military bureaucracy that he really is a Muslim terrorist is almost comic. Before the shootings, he expressed sympathy for terrorists and put his Islamic holy warrior tag on his business cards. He did everything short of hiring a skywriter to fly over Fort Hood writing, "Nidal Hasan is a Muslim Terrorist".

In the summer of '45, the United States concluded a war that had come to be seen by some as unwinnable after the carnage at Iwo JimaCarnage at Iwo Jima, yes. But I think it was the battle for Okinawa that convinced the US they could never win by invading Japan.

The Left repeatedly pushed the meme that it took Booosh longer to win the war in Iraq than it took to win WWII. Except we entered WWII while it was already under way for several years and finished it off with two major nuclear strikes.

The same double standard they used when they proclaimed that at least Saddam Hussein kept acts of terrorism down in Iraq (by raping and disembowling prisoners’ wives, cutting off their hands, etc.). Generally behaving as a tyrannical dictator against everyone, not just terrorists, but critics and innocents.

It is better to end a war by winning it than it is to drag it out for decades. See how well Germany, Italy and Japan recovered by their own labor, as opposed to Vietnam. Iraq and Afghanistan are Vietnams, they will never be like Japan. As far as nation building is concerned, let the losing countries rebuild on their own, so they A: Value what they have, B: Earn the skills to keep building and C: Don't burden American taxpayers forever.

12
posted on 08/13/2013 5:51:23 AM PDT
by BitWielder1
(Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)

On Sept 12, 2001, a single ICBM should have struck Mecca, hitting with all 8 warheads and reducing it to nothing. Then Afghanistan should have been saturated from one end to the other with nerve gas, Kabul nuked, and every structure in every village hit with World War II scale conventional bombing. Not so much as a goat left. Then the nuking of Baghdad, Tehran, and other strongholds of the enemy afterward. This could have been done in two weeks, followed by the announcement that the US will not tolerate assaults on its own soil.

13
posted on 08/13/2013 5:57:59 AM PDT
by GenXteacher
(You have chosen dishonor to avoid war; you shall have war also.)

After the second bomb fell, the senior Jap commanders decided the war was lost, and the decision was made that the emperor should go on the radio and tell the people to quit. Many of the next level of officers decided they couldn't accept this, and they would take control away from the emperor. The reasoning was that it would be better to have Japan totally destroyed and every person killed rather than surrender.

The senior commanders said they couldn't go against the emperor, so they would have to commit suicide to get out of the younger commanders way. That night they had a large gathering to ‘celebrate’ the death of the senior commanders. Too much was drunk and things didn't end till morning. They rushed to the Emperor's palace and surrounded - no radio address today.

What they didn't know was that it had previously been decided that the Emperor might not be able to get through reading such a document. It was decided to record the message and play it back over the radio (I don't know if the device was actually a ‘tape’ recorder, it may have used wire as many did back then).

When the radical commanders surrounding the palace heard the Emperor's voice over the radio, they knew they were sunk and committed suicide themselves. I always thought it was funny that people marveled at how good the Japaneses became at building consumer electronics. Hell, without them their country would have probably been bombed into the stone age - although it might have taken a little longer as we had already dropped the only two atomic bombs we had on them.

One thing that is never mentioned in all the weeping an gnashing of teeth, that 100,000 captives held by the Japanese were dying per month at that time. Still captives died at the end of the war for a while as they were too starved to survive, but many who died in captivity were saved.

There were recorders using magnetized paper tape in the late 1920’s, BASF invented Mylar tape sometime in the 30s, although as I mentioned in my answer above, the device would probably have used wire instead of tape. We used wire recorders extensively through World War II.

In his book “The Five Rings” Musashi described a tactic in fighting (either individual combat or war) called Piercing the Bottom. In this tactic one does not stop when the enemy is defeated physically, but continues attacking with such ferocity that the enemy loses all hope of victory and completely gives up resistance.

19
posted on 08/13/2013 6:13:18 AM PDT
by Jack of all Trades
(Hold your face to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.)

One thing that is never mentioned in all the weeping an gnashing of teeth, that 100,000 captives held by the Japanese were dying per month at that time. Still captives died at the end of the war for a while as they were too starved to survive, but many who died in captivity were saved.

My dad was on a baby flattop that picked up POWs from a Japanese internment camp and took them back to an island with a large hospital. He was almost 80 before my brothers and I got him to talk about it.

The spectacle of Nidal Hasan trying to communicate to a politically correct military bureaucracy that he really is a Muslim terrorist is almost comic. Before the shootings, he expressed sympathy for terrorists and put his Islamic holy warrior tag on his business cards. He did everything short of hiring a skywriter to fly over Fort Hood writing, "Nidal Hasan is a Muslim Terrorist".

Ted Koppel's advice of ignoring Muslim terrorism because it's more dangerous to react to it, backfired badly at Fort Hood.

My only brother was killed on Okinawa and the day that the war with Japan was over I was in line at a Leyte Replacement Depot, about 7th or 8th in line, to get battle gear to invade Japan. When we were told to go back to our tents there was a great feeling of relief even though we still had that feeling that in cases like mine there was no revenge. After all is said and done war is hate and revenge. My brother’s last v-mail was that he was willing to go all the way if I wouldn’t have to come. Those words just stick in my memory to this day.

Again Daniel hits the nail on the head. And I also agree with GenXteacher's post # 13.

Orson Scott Card's book series, "Ender's Game", deals with this same moral dilemma, and if you have not yet read it, you should. Although it was written as juvenile fiction, never-the-less it covers very adult concepts (just without any nasty words or porn scenes)which is refreshing to read.

Ender Wiggin, the third in a family of child geniuses, is selected by international military forces to save the world from destruction by an alien force of insect beings. Ender is sent away to an intense Battle training School where they train with war games. Compassion is the theme that runs through Ender's life and is the defining feature of his existence. The reason that he plays the games so well is his ability to understand the enemy and to inspire loyalty. And it is compassion that saves Ender. If not for his compassion he would have been turned into an automaton; he would have become either a killing machine or a power hungry creature. On the other hand, Ender realizes that Ruthlessness is sometimes necessary, but it is a last resort.

So there is conflict in Ender's mind when they tell him that he is to soon become the Commander of Earth's galactic forces against the alien invaders..... you will have to read the book to see how that turns out and you will not be disappointed.

I could not help but think of the parallels of Hiroshima and the agonizing decisions our military had to make to win the war (end the war).

By the way,"Ender's Game" the movie is to be released in November (staring Harrison Ford as a colonel in the International Fleet and the commandant of the Battle School, and Asa Butterfield as Ender. I suggest you read the book before going to see the movie.

as horrible as it was, what the bombing of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused to be avoided -
for Japanesae citizens all across Japan, and
for the Japanese homeland, Japanese soldiers
and American soldiers - it constituted
a sacrifice for the greater good

I am not seeing the parallel that Daniel is laying out. Obama is a muslim and his administration is filled with muslims, including his CIA chief, and muslim sympathizers like Hagel and Kerry and the minions working for this administration. Bush 1 & 2 and both Clintons are muslim sympathizers. Hence, a true war against the muslims was never the goal. Infiltration of our highest levels of Govt. has been achieved. The Chaos is upon us. Our troops are cannon fodder who cannot engage the enemy by ORDERS of the PINO. This isn’t about liking or hating - this is willful purposeful Treason.

ICTOAN is referring to the recording of the Showa Emperor telling is subjects they must “endure the undendurable” by surrendering to the Allies. I’m not sure what the recording medium was, but it wasn’t a transcript - it was kept from the hands of the pro-war faction and broadcast on radio the following day (or so). It was the first time most of the populace had heard his voice.

ICTOAN is trying to sound knowing and cute all at once. The clear implication is that the Imperial Japanese gave up because their Emperor told them to, not because the Allies were bringing the war home to them; therefore, there was no need to drop the atomic bombs.

Arguments against this interpretation are legion, but are not needed. All we have to do is read the Showa Emperor’s speech. In it, he referred explicitly to the employment by the enemy (US & Allies) of “a new and most cruel bomb.”

The nuclear warheads detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki were all of that.

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